


we move lightly

by eatjamfast



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Character Study, Developing Relationship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Holding Hands, Homesickness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 14:23:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13343085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eatjamfast/pseuds/eatjamfast
Summary: In space, thousands of miles away from home, love and forgiveness are the only things that can keep you going.





	we move lightly

**Author's Note:**

> lots of feels because when I watched voltron, the whole way through all I could think about is how those kids are managing to deal with the sheer stress of being away from home, fighting a war in reaches of outer space they never even knew existed.  
> there is a LOT of dialogue in this, too. plenty of talking about feelings.

 

Sometimes it was all too much.

The team had _just_ scraped by in another skirmish with the Galra. The fact the new team format had emerged during a time that was rich in fighting for Voltron was awkward, and didn't help them at all as they tried to navigate through the life-or-death situations. 

Lance was struggling to keep his mental reigns on red, who he sometimes worried was far too fast for her own good. He found himself getting distracted during missions, looking out at Blue longingly as she looped in and out of wayward lasers. Sometimes he thought he could feel her reaching out for him, only to have that connection angrily severed by Red seconds later.

_Mine, mine, mine,_ her low rumble always echoed through his mind. And he wanted to be hers, he really did, but he didn't feel right sitting in the cockpit of someone else's lion.

Everyone was wearing their stress differently.

Allura, Coran and Pidge were on the bridge, installing some sort of new security system that would alert them of a Galra attack sooner to minimise damage done to the castle when they were caught off-guard. The last time Lance saw Hunk, he was baking an absurd amount of cookies with the new spices they picked up in the quadrant they were in last week. Shiro, like Lance, had opted for finding an empty room in the ship because letting the rest of paladins see you holding back tears was pretty embarrassing.

The observation deck Lance had commandeered was lit by dim blue lights, and there were boxes of old wires dumped in the corner of the room (probably by Pidge). He let the door slide shut with a heavy sigh, running a hand through his hair.

The window was huge, spanning an entire wall, and faced fantastic sprays of distant solar systems. Vivid reds and purples and bright whites. And although Lance had to admit it was impressive, it made him feel a little queasy.

Which was why he questioned his sanity when he moved to sit next to the window instead of going to his bedroom. Maybe he was trying to prove something to himself.

He didn't know how long he was sat there, maybe an hour or so, before the door opened with a low hum. He could tell it was Hunk by the footfalls as he made his way over the Lance. Hunk stood next to where he was curled up for a while, before sighing and resting a comforting hand on his shoulder.

Lance bit his lip, blinking away the sting in his eyes. The lump in his throat told him that if he even tried to speak, he'd end up breaking down.

But he and Hunk had always fared well by way of companionable silences, using physicality for comfort instead of words. It was something that came along with living together in tiny sleeping quarters for so long at the Garrison.

“Are we alone here?” Lance finally whispered, looking up at him.

“We literally never get a second to ourselves,” Hunk said, rolling his eyes.

Lance stuck his tongue out. “I didn't mean it like that.”

“I know how you meant it, I just didn't know how to reply,” Hunk admitted with a wry smile.

Sighing, Lance pressed his temple against the window, trying to ignore the colourful spill of far off galaxies out of the side of his eye.

“I miss home.”

“I know.”

“I want to see my mum.” He hated how pathetic he sounded, how his voice trembled like he was little kid. “I want to see my brothers and sisters and I'd even take my dad at this point. I want to see my abuela, my cousins. I want to see the _ocean_ again.”

“God, I miss the ocean,” Hunk said thickly, and then he joined Lance against the window. But he didn't try to ignore the facts of where they were – he stared out into the endlessness.

Lance couldn't. It made his stomach churn unpleasantly.

For all the paladins, Hunk himself included, were quick to poke fun at Hunk's ever-present worrying, Lance thought he was endlessly courageous. He was Yellow's paladin, after all. Hunk was the one who constantly placed himself between his friends and the danger in front of them, taking the brunt of the pain in fights.

“I know saying all of it won't make it happen any sooner,” Lance said quickly, not wanting to harp on.

Hunk nodded seriously. “I never said it would.”

“I feel so stuck. Like we're _stuck_ here.”

“We kind of are, dude.”

“Shut up! You know what I mean. At first it was so cool, because we were in fucking space, man. _Space_!” Lance splayed out his fingers and made a whooshing noise. “But at the end of the day we're just a bunch of kids in a spaceship pretending to be brave when all we've got on our side are giant robots we can't fly properly and sheer luck.”

Hunk shrugged, offering up a small smile. “I try not to think too hard about it. Keeps me up at night.”

“As if. You were the only one who even brought up how fucked our situation was in the beginning. Now we've all swapped places with you. I can't come to terms with it at all, and you're having the time of your life in the space-age kitchen you've always dreamed of.”

“I wouldn't say I'm having the time of my life. You do realise how many times we've almost died this week,” Hunk said dryly. “Just trying to make the best out of a bad situation.”

“Have you ever thought about running away?”

Hunk laughed. It was a quiet and beautiful thing, dancing on the edge of sadness. “Lance. Seriously. I'm an anxiety disorder with legs. Of _course_ I've thought about running away.”

“What stopped you?” Lance said, his voice quiet. His eyes burned as he stared at Hunk, desperately seeking whatever answer he could give him.

“I dunno, man,” Hunk rubbed a tired hand over his face. “The fact it's, like, our destiny or whatever? I mean, we were chosen for this. Even when I'm puking my guts up from fear I still remember that. That the lion wouldn't have chosen me if it wasn't... If I didn't have _something_ to offer.”

“You're still with Yellow, though,” Lance mumbled. “Blue doesn't want me any more.”

Hunk sighed, and reached out to grab Lance's wrists and shake them. “Because you _grew,_ dude.”

“Uh, of course I grew we've been in space for – ”

“No, no!” Hunk laughed again with more humour, and Lance's heart eased at the sound. “Not like that. I mean... God, how do I mean? Spiritually? Emotionally?”

“So... what? What does that mean,” Lance said, feeling like he was hanging onto his every word.

“Allura told me, once,” Hunk continued like Lance had never interrupted him, “That the Blue Lion takes on the pilot she feels needs nurturing. She basically lets you in if you're unsure of yourself, and have a lot potential that she feels she can help develop.”

Lance didn't know how to feel about that. He didn't know how to feel about the flutter in his stomach when Hunk looped his fingers around his wrists, either. But that was a whole other kettle of fish.

“That's why... with all this shit that went down with Shiro and Keith and Allura? It's put Blue in a position where she could say 'yeah, you know what? He'll do fine from now on without my help'. You ended up being strong enough to pilot Red, dude. _Red_. Notoriously picky and grumpy. And she let you in without a fight. Keith had to blow himself out of an airlock to even get in the cockpit.”

Lance nodded. He understood what Hunk was saying, and totally got where he was coming from but he just couldn't feel that way about it. His heart was warring against the logic in a painful way.

“I feel like, ugh this sounds so dumb, but I kind of feel like I took her from Keith? You get me? Like all this... I don't know how to put it into words,” Lance said, frustrated. “Do you think he's coming back, man? Ever? It's just not the same without him here.”

“Words I would never expect to hear from Lance McClain's mouth,” Hunk said with a grin. Lance yanked his wrists from Hunk's grip and shoved him.

“Can it! Don't tell anyone I said that!”

“I would never dream of it.”

“But, really. Do you? Now he's doing his thing with the Blade... it just feels like we'll never see him again. It's weird. I think Allura feels bad too, but she doesn't talk about it.”

“It sucks, man. It really does. I miss him, too. I worry about him a lot, actually.”

Lance looked up at him with wide eyes. He knew Keith and Hunk got along, but he wouldn't have considered them to be close friends. The only people Keith ever gave the time of day when it came to opening up was Shiro and Allura, and even then it was only a need-to-know basis.

“Yeah, of course, dude. Like, if he's eating enough or training too hard or trying to impress that crazy strong group of aliens too much. What if he ends up hurting himself?” Hunk said quietly. “Shiro is probably the most upset, though.”

Lance nodded, and hummed thoughtfully. Shiro had definitely taken Keith's decision to leave Voltron the hardest. The paladins thought Lance was oblivious to most things, but that was just the attitude he played up. In reality, he noticed every shadow that crossed Shiro's face whenever anyone mentioned Keith, and it hurt his heart to see that sadness etched into his friend's expression when he already had so much to grieve in the first place.

“Did you ever find out what their deal was? Like, they were weirdly close. Closer than me and you, even," Lance murmured, knowing he couldn't have been the only paladin to pick up on it. 

“I'd heard rumours at the Garrison and stuff, but never got the real story. We should ask Shiro about it one day, I think.”

“What did you hear?” Lance pressed.

“Like, Shiro basically took Keith under his wing big-time and they were super close. I mean, obviously, or else why would Keith basically blow up a government facility to rescue him.”

“We _helped_!”

“Yeah but we didn't destroy federal property in the process,” Hunk said.

“I guess." Lance chewed his lip. "Don't you ever think about how different things would be, if we hadn't snuck up onto the roof to see Pidge. If we hadn't – ”

“I _think,_ ” Hunk interrupted him with a knowing look, “I think, that no matter what we'd have done that night we would have ended up out here. Blue was calling to us, right? No matter what, this whole thing was super unavoidable. Besides, if we hadn't been there, then what would have happened with that Galra ship above Earth?”

“...I never thought about that.”

“If you hadn't been in Blue at that exact moment in time, we'd have a whole lot less to fight for right now.”

Sometimes it struck Lance how good Hunk could be with words, how thoughtful he could be when prompted to give advice. And he also realised how little they actually paid attention to his words, took heed from his warnings.

Suddenly, Lance was very glad he was stuck in outer space with the guy.

“You're right,” Lance said, taking a deep breath. “Sorry for getting all...” he waved his hands around, “blergh, you know. Deep and stuff. Just get like this sometimes now.”

“I'm right there with you, Lance, honestly. We're all going through the same storm right now, just sailing it on different ships. You should talk to us more. We're your teammates, it's what we're here for.”

“It's kind of embarrassing, though.”

“Why?”

“Because I pretend to be super chilled and fun all the time. So when I get like this, I feel like I'm letting people down by letting it get to me.”

“Lance, bro, nobody on this ship thinks for one second that you're 'super chilled and fun' all the time. In fact, 'chilled' is literally the last thing I'd use to describe you.”

“ _Hey!_ ” Lance said indignantly. 

“I'm just saying...” Hunk's voice was impossibly gentle, and he took Lance's hands again, brushing his thumb over his knuckles with heart-breaking tenderness. “I'm just saying, you don't hide your insecurities as well as you think you do. We all worry about you. _I_ worry about you a hell of a lot.”

Lance flicked his gaze up to Hunk's, feeling his cheeks heat up at the intensity in them. He'd always been a big fan of Hunk's eyes, as weird as that sounded. Even before he'd started feeling not-so-friendly stuff towards him, he'd always found him maintaining eye-contact just so he could figure out if there really were hazel flecks in their russet brown, he'd always appreciated that a simple look exchange between the two of them could read anger or humour or happiness without any words at all.

Now, he loved them because they were his one constant in a world of violently changing variables. He loved how his lashes were impossibly long, and how Allura had once confided in him that she was actually pretty jealous of them. He loved – uh, well. He loved a lot of stuff about Hunk that Hunk didn't necessarily need to know about.

“Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence,” Lance tried to laugh, but it sounded hollow.

“No, man, I'm saying you should give _us_ one,” Hunk said sadly. “This? All this you've just told me? It's more than you've ever said since we came out here. I wish you'd tell me how you felt more often.”

Without thinking, Lance twined their fingers together fully.

Hunk stiffened a little, before relaxing into the touch, and then squeezed Lance's hand in his with surprising gentleness given the strength he had. Lance loved that about Hunk, too. That even though he was literally more of a tank than a human being, he took care in everything and never touched anything with the initial desire to harm.

He wondered if being in Voltron went against Hunk's very nature, if the killcount in his head of their enemies had twisted that kindness inside of him somehow. It was moments like this that proved to Lance war hadn't ruined Hunk's heart. If anything, it had made him love more fiercely, and in turn make him fight even harder for what they believed in.

Lance lifted his gaze, found Hunk staring at him with startling intimacy, and knew that his expression was the exact same.

One day, they would have to talk about those new feelings that were creeping up on them, slowly building their relationship into something more than friendship. But Lance didn't want to talk about that today.

All he wanted, in that moment, was to feel the warmth of Hunk's palms against his, and pretend that everything was going to be okay.

 

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr at eatjamfast!  
> hmu if you wanna talk about headcanons and stuff pls!!


End file.
